By Olha Chepil | 2024-10-14

KYIV -- In the more than two decades since Russian President Vladimir Putin has been in power, protest and dissent in Russia have become a crime, while repression has reached Soviet-era levels, observers say.

"About 3% of people who are prosecuted for political reasons have relatives who fall victim to harassment [from authorities]. That's not a very big proportion, but it's a large absolute number ... We're talking about several dozen people who in addition to facing prosecution themselves are seeing their relatives being coerced," OVD-Info spokesman Dmitry Anisimov told Kontur.

OVD-Info is a human rights NGO.

Political repression had been picking up speed even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine Anisimov said. But in the last few years, official harassment of the relatives of Russians who are being prosecuted for their antiwar stance has visibly ramped up.

"Investigators, police or security agencies can use this tool to extort or to punish someone even more, for example. And this is possible simply because the legal system in Russia is corrupt and they can act with impunity," Anisimov told Kontur.

According to him, various relatives are subject to harassment. Unsurprisingly, parents and spouses are targeted most. Yet the government may go after children, siblings, close friends or anyone associated with a defendant.

The Kremlin's abuse of political prisoners and their relatives is a politically motivated strategy that the Russian authorities are using to quash freedom of speech and to punish anyone who speaks out against the government, say analysts.

Retaliation against relatives of opponents mounted quickly because many antiwar defendants in cases were forced to flee Russia, say the observers. Because the tentacles of the state cannot reach them abroad, it is seeking revenge on relatives who are still in Russia.

'The pressure takes different forms'

Moscow, illegally annexed Crimea including Sevastopol, and Chechnya have the most cases.

"The pressure takes different forms. It can be both the opening of yet another criminal case against a relative or friend, or pressure at work or school, like dismissal or expulsion. It could be a threat to take away parental rights and put a child or children into an institution," Anisimov said.

According to Anisimov, activists' friends or relatives often suffer vandalism. There have been cases of arson targeting cars and homes of activists who left Russia or were incarcerated.

The Russian security services often conduct additional searches of relatives' homes and misuse their powers against those who live there.

Since 2012 Russia has prosecuted more than 4,000 defendants for political reasons, OVD-Info finds. However, the exact figure may be higher because the Russian authorities do not tally inmates incarcerated for political reasons.

"We update these statistics regularly, and every week we add five, six or seven people. But there may be more because if someone doesn't publicize his [or her] own prosecution somehow or if they don't have support, or if the authorities don't write about the prosecution, it's rather hard to get information about it,” Anisimov said.

It is not only political activists and their families who suffer from political persecution in Russia.

The victims come from a broad swath of society: journalists and supporters of nature preserves, media personalities and local bloggers, lawyers and members of religious movements.

"We're currently working on more than 100 criminal cases. We have quite a few lawyers in different cities in Russia who are prepared to go to the police station or to court or anywhere else to defend someone," Anisimov said.

Politically motivated strategy

Nadezhda Skochilenko left Russia in late April 2022, shortly after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She is the mother of artist and ex-political prisoner Sasha Skochilenko, who in 2023 received a seven-year sentence for replacing the price tags in a St. Petersburg store with messages denouncing the invasion.

Sasha was freed in a multiple-prisoner swap in August.

The relatives of political prisoners in Russia rarely give interviews or talk about the harassment they endure, and that there are reasons for this, said Nadezhda.

"The relatives of political prisoners are afraid of being persecuted themselves, and they're afraid that their jailed relatives will be pressured, so they try not to talk to foreign media outlets about what's happening," she told Kontur.

"When they do talk, the consequence is often that the prisoners are subjected to different kinds of [retribution]: they can't have visitors, they're not allowed to have phone calls with relatives, they're not allowed letters, they're deprived of medical care. Or they can be put in solitary confinement."

Sasha Skochilenko now lives in Germany with her girlfriend, Sonya. During her year in prison, she and Sonya (who remained free) were prohibited from seeing each other.

"Sasha and Sonya are ... getting back on their feet after what they went through. But I’m worried for the numerous acquaintances they're in touch with, and they're supporting people in the courts and publicizing these events," said Skochilenko.